The True Price Of The Gardner Heist Is Empty Walls Of Art

March 20, 2013

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This undated photograph released by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum shows the painting “Chez Tortoni” by Manet, which was part of the collection at the museum. Burglars stole treasured art objects in an early morning robbery at the museum on March 18, 1990 in Boston. (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum/AP)

This week, the infamous decades-old art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum took yet another “Thomas Crowne-esque” twist. But while the theatrical whodunit continues to titillate, for a true art lover such as the Boston Globe’s Sebastian Smee, the whole thing leaves him feeling deeply sad.

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Boston Globe “Has any museum ever lost more, qualitatively, than the ­Isabella Stewart Gardner ­Museum lost 23 years ago? The story of the theft itself, of course, is enthralling. We all love an unsolved art heist. The bravado, the brutality, the mysteries of motive and aftermath — it all seems perfectly cinema-ready. But whenever you think about the pictures themselves, it’s all just incredibly sad.”